Body Image Concern In Adolescent Girls

In the article “The Internet and Adolescent Girls’ Weight Satisfaction and Drive for Thinness,” authors Marika Tiggemann and Jessica Miller conducted a study to determine if there is a correlation between various forms of media such as, magazine, television, the internet and a desire for a smaller body weight size, specifically in regards to teenage girls. The authors hypothesize that, “Internet appearance exposure will be correlated with lower weight satisfaction and greater drive for thinness.” The experiment asked the girls to rate how often they read specific magazines, watched specific television shows and browsed specific websites on the internet. They were then given a questionnaire to measure their internalization, appearance comparison,

Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass Media is a key idea in one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for a sense of entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl. Media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic way from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or way. In this essay the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing

Today’s society is a consumers’ society in which trying to obtain perfection is one of the fastest selling businesses (DeLaMater Pg. 12). Mass media, advertising, and fashion industries are being accused of feeding off females dissatisfaction with their bodies by portraying unhealthy thin role models in order to sell their products. This unachievable physique and lifestyle has led today’s adolescence down a dark path of such extreme eating disorders as anorexia and bulimia. Although it may sound nice to be societies perception of thin, there are consequences to these eating disorders such as cardiac failure that lead to horrifying defects or even death.

It was once said by the common woman, “Zero percent of women haven’t struggled with body image issues.”

Teens who are in college have just as many problems with their body as people in high school. The media affecting people of all ages can consist of anything from people on social media, to celebrities on T.V., to the models who walk on runways. People who struggle with their body image are all over the world and are often closed off to other people. When girls look at magazines they see all of the models posing and then they compare themselves to them because the models are what society says is pretty, and they aren’t. Media is a great way for companies to get their products out there, but when adolescents compare themselves to models, they will start to have body image issues.

Researchers have discovered that “ongoing exposure to certain ideas can shape and distort our perceptions on reality.” (Mintz 2007) Because young girls are subjected to a constant display of beautiful people in the media, they have developed a negative body image of themselves. Those who have a negative body image perceive their body as being unattractive or even hideous compared to others, while those with a positive body image will see themselves as attractive, or will at least accept themselves and be comfortable in their own skin. During adolescence, negative body image is especially harmful because of the quick changes both physically and mentally occurring during puberty. Also, young girls are becoming more and more exposed to the media and the media keeps getting more and more provocative. Young girls are looking to women with unrealistic body shapes as role models. It’s hard to find, in today’s media, a “normal” looking

Is the media to blame for young women becoming obsessed with their body image? Is the media becoming so prevalent in young women's lives that it is altering the way they see their own body and affecting the way they feel about themselves?

It’s safe to say that, at some point in their lives, every girl has wanted to look like the girl on the magazine cover, or like a Barbie doll. Barbie can start the beginning of young girls body image thinking that they should look like barbie. Also teen girls interpret weight loss advertising as something they should probably do because then care about what they look like for other people and for them. Even women are affected by Magazine models at an older age wishing they looked like the other woman at their age. Everyone can be affected by this problem it could happen everywhere. Advertising and Female icons affect our body image in many ways.

In this current time period, young girls are becoming increasingly obsessed with body image. The mass media’s intense objectification of the female body combined with poor representation of differing body types it becomes substantially difficult for young girls to view their bodies as anything less than an object. Participating in an athletic activity such as running, helps girls appreciate the practical use of their bodies instead of viewing them aesthetically.

What is body image? A two-dimensional model of body image incorporates both perceptual and emotional components. It focuses on both how we feel about the size and shape of our bodies and how accurately we perceive our body size as well. A more recent cognitive approach suggests that body image is a complex set of cognitive schema. A schema is a grouped body of knowledge. Groups of schema are readily available for important tasks such as guiding behavior, circumstantial scripts (or dialogue), and evoking the appropriate emotional, somatic, visual, and auditory responses in certain situations. The cognitive schema for body image is an organized domain of knowledge about oneself and others.

There is no denying that social media: Instagram and Tumblr, has a significant influence on all of us. The current effects of social media have increased dramatically among young women aged between 15 and 25. As stated in the study by (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008) that the high exposure to social media portraying the thin-ideal body may be linked to body image disturbance in young women. They used a meta-analysis examined experimental and correlation studies testing the links between media exposure to young women's body dissatisfaction and the unconscious behavior towards having a thin ideal body. The results by (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008) support the claim that high exposure to social media images depicting the thin-ideal body is related to

This experiment involved girls, 6-10 years old, playing with dolls with various body proportions. After that they had a taste-test and filled out a questionnaire about body image. This study concluded that playing with thin dolls affected the girls eating behavior. They found that girls ate less food when playing with a thin doll then when played with an average sized doll. The researchers showed evidence that the physical appearance of a model can influence the ‘normative’ standard of food intake in an eating context. This is evidence that what might seems as just harmless children toys can have a serious effect on young girls. This helps my argument that these toys do have serious consequences. Although this particular study does not really

I have a question for you. Is there too much pressure on girls now days to have the perfect body? Are the media, celebrities, society, and dolls putting pressure on the young girls to want to change themselves? You might wonder why there is girls as young as 10 years old getting diagnosed with eating disorders. The media and models are representing women as underweight and it is causing pressure on these younger girls and women to achieve the unachievable body. The definition of the word perfect according to Merriam-Webster dictionary is being entirely without fault or defect. People have taken this definition and turned it into reality. Now we must be without fault within our appearances to be considered perfect.

Did you know that over 90% of girls ages 15-17 want to change at least one thing about their body? Body image can hurt self esteem, and even cause eating disorders. The media affects how you think about yourself. Body image has a big effect on teenagers.

In today’s society, the public is exposed to technology at even younger ages than ever before. Everywhere you go these days you see kids even as little as three holding their parent’s phones or even their own, watching videos or playing games. But as said in the article Does Social media impact on body image by Philippa Roxby, as kids start becoming teenagers their technological uses advance and they start to rely on social media sites for new sources of communication, and their main channel to the outside world. Based on studies conducted by psychologists they have come up with a conclusion that social media has a direct relationship to body image concerns. I believe that in today’s society we should focus on promoting self-confidence as most of the adolescents have a very low assurance of their own bodies. Although a study conducted in the article The Upside of Selfies: Social media isn’t all bad for kids by Kelly Wallace says that a survey which resulted in 52% of the teens saying that social media positively influences them. Even though social media platforms have some beneficial aspects such as they make people want to go on diets, exercise, and eating healthy, the teenagers don’t really look/understand the negative aspects of it. The impacts that are carried with social media are mostly negative such as fancying teenagers to lose confidence in themselves and has become a toxic mirror to them. The visual platforms impact